Last fall, we lost our dear colleague Bruce Wade. After his death, there was a tremendous outpouring of love from faculty and staff in departments and offices all across Spelman's campus. We here in the Teaching Resource and Research Center (TRRC) experienced our own sadness and grief at Bruce's passing. He was a member of the TRRC advisory board and made great contributions in helping us think through our efforts, in serving as a workshop leader, and in creating beautiful workshop titles. We were also deeply moved by the heartfelt words that so many others on campus wrote about him. Clearly, Bruce was loved and appreciated by many people on campus. It warmed our hearts to read the beautiful memories and stories and tributes that people shared. We felt so happy to have known Bruce and were delighted that his kindness and humor and intellect had touched so many others. We also felt proud to work in an institution where the kind and loving words we were reading reflected the high regard people have for one of their colleagues, and that they were willing to make their thoughts and feelings known to others.

As we talked about this, it occurred to us that it would be lovely for faculty to have a space where we can share our appreciation for our colleagues to receive while they are still here. We understood that we don't have to wait until someone's passing to celebrate them and that a TRRC blog would be the perfect place for sharing our high regard for each other, especially as the TRRC is already a showcase for faculty work as scholars and teachers.

The TRRC is happy to announce a new blog series, which will appear on the TRRC website. Shining A Light will feature a monthly blog post by one Spelman faculty member celebrating and honoring another. This is an invitation for you to write a blog post of appreciation to celebrate a faculty colleague. Feel free to post your thoughts using our Shining A Light Form.

Each month, faculty colleagues celebrate other faculty colleagues, anonymously. We will send a Google Forms link around and invite faculty to submit celebratory blog posts for faculty whose last names end in particular letters (for example A - C in April and D – F in May). The posts, which can range from about 200 words to about 1000 words, will simply highlight the reasons the particular colleague is worthy of celebration. We will post the blogs on the TRRC website.



We hope that you are as excited about this idea as we are, and that you will embrace this opportunity to celebrate a colleague — or several! To us, this is another way for us to reflect and create the wonderful Spelman community.